Replicas
by Alphabet Pie
Summary: Vexen and his relationship with his replicas. One shot. 411. ** Now with sequel! Marluxia and his relationship with his replica. Mentions of AkuRoku, onesided 1211. **
1. Four Eleven

It is oft reported that of the Organisation, Demyx was the biggest slut, or possibly Marluxia.

The simple fact is that it's _Vexen_.

He's the only one to have slept with every single other member at some point, despite being the most reclusive of them all. He's even slept with himself, once or twice. His secret? Replicas.

The scientific impossibility of cloning has always fascinated him, and with the loss of a heart bodies are simply so easily _duplicated_, and he has done it - wittingly or otherwise - for all the nobodies of Organisation XIII.

He will be the first to tell you that this was never for any perverted reason - although he will happily add that _Marluxia_, the narcissistic bastard, specifically requested a replica of himself for that very purpose - but it is simply _easier_ to create replicas who are naturally predisposed towards him. In a few cases, this has developed to unprecedented extreme.

During the day, the replicas are used by the others for menial tasks that none of the original nobodies could be bothered with, or mindless heart collection, or pits of strength, but at night, they are _his_.

They sleep with him, sometimes, crawl into his bed to cling to his arms, his legs, his chest. They coo his name until he is lulled into a gentle, deep sleep, and lovingly awake him again more softly than any incessant alarm. They follow him around the labs and he makes idle chatter with them as they help him with collection and disposal of all kinds of random laboratory equipment and chemicals. He drops soft kisses on their foreheads as he walks past, and is rewarded with small, fleeting smiles in turn.

He respects them. After all, they are, of sorts, his children; they don't have the easiest of lives - none of them have any more than a simple number for a name, nor even their own identity, and they are abused so badly by the other members that sometimes Vexen finds himself their only solace. Perhaps that's partly why they adore him so much, but for whatever reason, adore him they do. Effortlessly, unwaveringly.

Those who know - precious few - call him sick, twisted even, for creating his own reverent followers, but they don't _understand_. This, he reasons, is his reward for being such a successful scientist, for having such a brilliant mind. It had been unheard of, to create life, before his very first Replexen lay coughing on the surgery table in the small hours of one idle Monday morning.

Now he has at least one for each member, several in the cases of himself, Xemnas, Roxas and Marluxia. The first three are self explanatory. Marluxia? He isn't so sure. But there's something about the Graceful Assassin's twisted, manipulative mind with layers upon layers of hidden personality, and perfect body, that makes him both a pleasure and a challenge to replicate. He's got it wrong quite a few times. The first Repluxia was nothing more than a _psychopath_, the second akin to a sulking adolescent. The third really was perfect, down to every flawless detail and personality trait, but with such people as Marluxia you can't give to them who they truly are. So a Four-Eleven was made, just a little more innocent than the original, a little more submissive. Marluxia deemed it perfect. Vexen never saw the poor thing again.

He wonders sometimes if it's even still alive.

A pity, that. He quite liked that replica. So sweetly naïve... but Vexen suspects that he didn't stay that way for long.

He takes a select few with him to Castle Oblivion, some for research, some for assistance, some for company.

He makes a few more in his time there; another Zexion - Two-Six; an eighteenth Thirteen. Each Roxas that Vexen makes is more obedient, less questioning, more stoic, on Xemnas' orders. But he doesn't like altering personalities of replicas. People are complicated enough as they are; if you start changing things too you never know which way their alignment can turn.

He leaves the Marluxias at home, back at the World that Never Was.

It's two weeks later that he is killed. Burned, brutally, by none other than Axel, ordered by that very man whose replicas he so lovingly created.

The experience leaves him shivering in his room. It's not the physical pain - replica Twelve-Four was created to be impervious after all - but the simple fact that Marluxia deemed him so expendable cuts him deep. He immediately plans to leave - after all, the Organisation considers him dead - and gathers his possessions and replicas together. Tomorrow morning, he will be gone. One by one, the other nobodies of Castle Oblivion fall. He feels them fade invisibly into the darkness, countless floors below in the lowest laboratory where he hides.

When he takes his leave to go to bed, he is uneasy.

In the small hours of the morning, shaking arms wrap around his body and tug him close. He runs his fingers over one hand - the skin is smooth, the nails well kept and manicured. Marluxia.

He reaches out to turn the light on, and twists around to see the man who ordered him dead.

Four-Eleven opens his mouth to say something and Vexen snarls quite uncharacteristically, pushing him away.

"Don't speak," He says. "Don't look at me."

He searches the room for something - anything - to cover those deep, deceitful blue eyes, and finds a long strip of black fabric somewhere in the bottom of a drawer. He ties it around the replica's head and they are gone.

He still holds him tight that night. The poor thing is being punished but has done nothing wrong, scared and confused as he mourns for the loss of his original. It's the least that Vexen can do.

Vexen of all people understands the injustice of a punishment undeserved, but it is months before he can finally bring himself to remove Four-Eleven's blindfold. The replica - so obedient, just as the original Marluxia requested - has spent that time fumbling in a world of artificially induced darkness, unable to see, unable to speak. It's cruel.

Finally Vexen is lying in bed one morning, watching him. He knows that Marluxia is gazing impassively back in his general direction, and he reaches around to the back of the head of messy pink hair and tugs the tight knot out, letting the fold fall loose.

"Speak," He says, "If you must."

For a moment Marluxia simply stares, blinking in the light. There is a depth to his eyes that Vexen has forgotten he had.

"He took over," He finally says.

Vexen frowns at him.

"Marluxia? He tried, certainly-"

"No. The Replica Four-Eleven. He took my place in the Organisation." Marluxia says. When Vexen doesn't reply, he continues. "He convinced Xemnas to grant him leadership ove Castle Oblivion, created his own agenda, and ordered you dead. He wanted to kill you, Vexen. He grew strong. He grew resentful."

Vexen pulls himself away from Marluxia, shaking his head.

"You?" He mutters disbelievingly. "You're the original?"

"What does it matter," Marluxia replies. "They're all dead now. Even that fool Axel."

Vexen sighs. As many times as he's had Repluxias in his bed, he's never wittingly slept with the real Marluxia. It's an odd feeling, to suddenly realise that for months he's not been sleeping with his own creation, programmed from the word go to like him, but an independent, freethinking original nobody.

Finally, he lays back down on Marluxia's chest, tangling his fingers in that silky soft pink hair he knows so well.

"What does it matter," He agrees quietly as Marluxia pulls him closer in the warm morning sunshine. "What does it matter at all."


	2. Another Side

"Axel! You are deplorable!"

"Oh, come off it. I bet either of you would have done the same,"

"Yeah, but only because all of you are faggots."

"I'm scared to go in your room now, for fear of finding a replica of myself,"

"Marluxia, you're so narcissistic it's not even funny any more."

Marluxia simply shrugged, lounging back further into the comfortable pillows laid out on the bed. Larxene, lying next to him, glared at him, but half heartedly. Marluxia's constant self-obsession had, for the first few weeks, been hilarious, then for several months, annoying, but now it was something that nobody even batted an eyelid at any more. Since he appeared to be the only man good enough to sleep with himself, they left him to it.

"Maybe you should get Vexen to make you a replica of yourself to play with, so at least when you masturbate you won't be on your own," Axel offered jokingly. Larxene winced, expecting Marluxia to snap - he didn't take so kindly to insults of any kind, even in jest, but the assassin simply laughed, leaning over to lift his glass of wine from the bedside table and take an elegant sip.

"That's not such a bad idea. Perhaps I ought to do that. You can have it afterwards, Axel."

Axel wrinkled up his face in mock disgust.

"After you've had your flowery hands all over him? No thanks. I think I'll stick with Roxas."

"You mean the Roxas replica," Larxene teased. She reached over Marluxia - and instead of taking a glass, simply grabbed the bottle of wine and took a good chug before passing it to Axel, who was sitting at the end of the bed. Marluxia frowned disapprovingly at her, but she gave him a mock-affectionate kiss with which he didn't seem too displeased.

They were on their fourth bottle, after all.

"I already tried to explain to you, it's because I don't want to ruin my friendship with the real Roxas. You can't have a guy open his legs to you without changing things."

"I'm just waiting for Roxas to walk in on your two doing your thing," Larxene said with a giggle. "It's gonna be _precious_,"

Axel threw the now-empty wine bottle at her, but she dodged it with ease. Vines whipped up from nowhere and caught it before it could make contact with the wall, and set it back down on the bedside table.

"Don't make a mess, Axel."

"Perish the thought with you around. You're almost as bad as Vexen,"

"Speaking of, I bet he has a few sex-toy replicas of his own," Larxene said, rolling off the bed to walk over to Marluxia's mini-bar and pull out another bottle of wine.

"Ugh," Axel moaned. "I'd rather see Marluxia screwing himself,"

"That can be arranged," Marluxia said pleasantly as he took the wine from Larxene and poured himself a glass before she could sully the bottle with her lips.

"I'd laugh so hard if somebody actually _did_ walk in on that," She said after drinking a good amount of the wine. "Mar, you really ought to give up on the glass and just do it straight from the bottle. You're hardly drinking anything,"

"Marluxia never does anything straight," Axel sniggered.

"Says the man who's fucking a replica of a fifteen year old boy," Marluxia clipped back smoothly.

"Ooh," Larxene grinned. "That was a good one,"

Axel couldn't come up with a response quick enough and admitted defeat, simply stealing the bottle from Larxene again, taking a long gulp.

"If you're going to drink it like that, at least get some cheap lager or something. That wine is expensive,"

"Don't you try guilt tripping me," Axel muttered. "I know you just nick it from places,"

"That's not the point. If you didn't drink it all, I could sell some of it for twice its worth,"

"And use the money to buy what? You steal everything."

"Who cares?" Larxene interrupted. "But seriously, Mar, if you could have one replica of anybody, would it really be yourself?"

"It's not as though any of the other nobodies are remotely desirable," Marluxia replied coolly, pouring another glass.

"You cut me, Marluxia. You cut me deep," Axel moaned melodramatically. "And what about you, Larxene? Who would your replica be?"

Both of the assembled men looked on in mild surprise and amusement as Larxene coloured slightly.

"Oh, shut up," She said. "I don't know. Not one of you two fags, that's for sure. Lexaeus, maybe. He's gotta be good."

"Ouch." Marluxia said, wincing.

"Ouch?" Larxene and Marluxia echoed, turning to stare at him. "Why _ouch_?"

Marluxia abashedly busied himself with his glass of wine.

"... Were you imagining Lexaeus taking you?" Axel asked after a moment. "God, I thought you were too high-and-mighty to actually let somebody top you,"

"I was imagining it for Larxene, thank you very much." Marluxia muttered.

"Sure you were," Larxene laughed, slapping Marluxia on the shoulder. He fired off a baleful glare.

They cracked open another glass of wine.

----

.... What they _didn't_ expect was for Marluxia to actually go through with Axel's drunken plan.

Axel and Larxene were hanging out in Larxene's room when not one, but two Marluxias waltzed in.

Well, the first - and obviously the original - waltzed. The other shuffled obediently behind him, dressed in a skin tight patent leather tank top and equally tight trousers of the same material. Round his neck was a choker - and attached to it, a leash which Marluxia held.

"What do you think?"

"You are so sick," Was the first thing Axel said. "That is wrong on so many levels that you could make a skyscraper out of it."

But Larxene was more forgiving.

"You gotta admit, Vexen is damn good at what he does. Just look at how accurate that thing is. If he had better posture you honestly wouldn't be able to tell you two apart. Why is he like that, anyway?"

Marluxia let himself smirk a little, reaching up to lovingly stroke the replica's cheek. It let out a little moan, blushing.

"Vexen said that it would probably try to kill me if it had my personality-"

"-Proves how much of a bastard you are-" Axel gleefully interrupted.

"- so he had to change it a little. Took four attempts to get it right. I think he kept the other three, but you can see why, can't you?"

Larxene whistled.

"It might be sick, but you have to admit that screwing a replica of yourself is a damn good idea if you're a narcissistic brat. Good thing we don't have hearts, huh?"

There was a pause.

"Hey," Axel said after a while. "Can we sort of, you know, arrange for Demyx to accidentally walk in on you molesting your little mirror-image over there? Nobody'd believe him, and it'd be _precious_..."

----

"You know, Marluxia doesn't hang with us nearly as much any more, since he got that replica of his," Axel commented one lazy evening. They were taking up residence in his room today, and the Roxas replica was there, too, reading a book in the corner. He seemed to be happy enough.

"Well, neither do you," Larxene muttered. "At this rate, I'll have to get one myself,"

"Lexaeus?" Axel chuckled.

"Of course not, I was kidding about that. I'd get Vexen to make me a Marluxia."

Axel very nearly choked on the coke he was drinking.

"Marluxia? Are you for real?"

"Well, he is gorgeous. And he can be quite a nice guy sometimes. The only problem is is that he's about as bent as a full circle."

"You can say that again," Axel intoned dully.

"Don't tell him I said that."

"What, that he's the gayest man in all existence?"

"No, that I'd sleep with him. You idiot."

Axel opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by the door swinging open and Marluxia making a grand entrance. His hair was wet, and he was smiling.

"That," He said, "Was satisfying."

"Don't want to know." Larxene and Axel replied in unison. Marluxia just sighed, grabbing himself a coke.

"Seriously, though, have either of you considered using your elements for sexual pleasure?"

"What, and burn Roxas' cock off?" Axel exclaimed dramatically. The boy in question glanced up, frowning. But he wasn't focusing on Axel, but Marluxia. The pink haired man glared at him, and Roxas looked away again, back to his book.

"Neither of us are really suited to that kind of thing," Larxene admitted. "But vine rape? That's kinda... sick..."

"I was talking about bondage."

"Oh. That's hot."

---

One Marluxia perched next to the other, still bound and gagged by restrictive, bitter vines. He reached out a hand and lovingly caressed his mirror's cheek.

"You're a fool," He murmured. "Was it really beyond your intelligence to realise that no matter how submissive you and your pet scientist made me, I still had the capacity to think for myself? To _change_?"

The second Marluxia hissed angrily, choking on the vine in his mouth. He'd have thrashed, fought, battled, but in the tendrils wrapped around his exposed body there was simply no give no matter how he strained.

"Because I grew strong, Marluxia. And I grew resentful." - a harsh tug at rosy hair - "I might look like you, but that doesn't mean I'm any less of an individual. And while you were blind sighted by your self obsession and pride, I worked. I trained, I grew to surpass even you, the "original". How does it feel to be second best _now_?"

The replica pulled harshly again at Marluxia's hair, and he let out a small whimper, muscles in his arms straining ineffectually at the vines that bound him.

"From now on, you are the replica Four-Eleven and I am the true Marluxia. Do you understand?"

Marluxia whimpered again, eyes screwed up to try to block out the horrible truth that his own replica had overthrown him.

"I said, do you understand?"

The plants squeezed him tighter, grew thorns that lacerated his skin. He tried to cry out, but the gag held him back. He nodded, instead, as best he could.

The replica smiled a sickly sweet smile - _his_ sickly sweet smile, and stood.

And left, Marluxia still pinned to the bed, unable to move.

----

He didn't return for three days, by which time Marluxia was ready to collapse from dehydration and sleep deprivation - he'd reached the tipping point of exhaustion a while ago, but it was impossible to even drift off with the thorns slowly bleeding him of all life force.

The bastard walked in as if he owned the place, and didn't even have the decency to loosen the vines a little.

Marluxia watched him casually toy with _his_ things and sift through _his_ clothes, and he wondered when exactly it had been that he'd completely and utterly lost control.

"Xemnas is planning a mission to Castle Oblivion," He said, conversationally, as he poured himself a class of _his_ wine. "And he's decided to put me in charge. Of course, I had to pull a few strings here and there, but then again it's so fortunate that our beloved Superior succumbs so easily to physical pleasure."

There was a neat click as Marluxia set down the wine glass and turned to his toy.

"Which sets the field perfectly for Xemnas to succumb to my rule, as well,"

And then he climbed onto the bed, reaching for him, sliding his legs wide open, and he tried to scream - it no longer mattered if anybody heard, just as long as _somebody_ heard - but all that came out was harsh, gasping coughs and splutters as he scrabbled spasmodically at the bloodstained bed sheets.

---

It was Larxene who eventually found him, but too late. By the time she happened to come across him, still bound, pale and shaking from fever and starvation, his mind had already been crushed by the replica - no, that Marluxia was the original now, and that was all that he truly, honestly believed.

So when he cut the vines with her sharp kunai, all he could do was cry in her arms as she held him tight.

---

"You're disgusting."

"I'm sorry?"

Larxene marched up to Marluxia and prodded him angrily in the chest.

"You're vile. I happened to go looking for you in your room, and guess what I found. Your replica, bound to the bed, bleeding everywhere and as white as the sheet would have been if it hadn't been covered in blood. For God's sake, even Axel doesn't treat his Roxas that badly,"

"It isn't my fault that we were somewhat... active last night."

"He had a mental breakdown in my _arms_, Marluxia. He had a fever of one-hundred-and-three. I had to take him to Vexen, he was so bad."

"Why do you even care? It's just a replica,"

"Yes, but it's still a _person_,"

"Not really," Marluxia shrugged. "Besides, it'll survive. Replicas are tricky things to kill."

Larxene nodded, temporarily satisfied. Whatever hollow flare of emotion the experience with the replica had caused, it was fading now and she was quickly finding it difficult to care.

"Doesn't it ever get boring, only sleeping with yourself?" She finally asked. Marluxia gave her a calculative look, then sighed.

"Yes," He admitted. "A little."

---

Months pass, maybe.

He's sure that he's going to die, most of the time. When he's bound, he can't move, can't eat, can't drink, can't sleep. When he's released, he can barely move anyway, and food is hard to find in the little quarters that have become his domain. Marluxia doesn't keep food in this room and he doesn't have the strength to open a portal to escape its locked doors. He's not sure he even remembers how.

Sometimes Marluxia leaves half-finished drinks and snacks there, though, and he eats the bitter vines that so efficiently bind him. They make him sick, but he's so starved that desperation takes over and that kind of logical thought becomes impossible.

Nobody even knows he's here, a replica no longer desired, useless now.

Eventually it becomes too much to bear and he focuses all of his remaining power on picking through the lock on the door. As soon as it's open, he runs. Down what seems like a hundred flights of stairs, out through a crack in the double doors, down the pathway floating in nothingness until the road just ends. He's stuck.

So he returns to the castle and slinks in shadows, hides in forgotten, dusty corners, pilfers unregarded food from the kitchens at midnight. They Keybearer arrives and he feels it when his original is eliminated.

In his pain and grief, he remembers one single thing. The man who created him.... He doesn't _remember_ being made, but he knows it's Vexen.

He seeks the man out in the dead of night, crawls weakly into his bed, wraps his arms around him, shivering.

For some reason Vexen pushes him away at first, shouting at him, covering his eyes with some kind of blindfold. He doesn't understand why. He doesn't know what to deserve this. What he did to deserve any of this. He doesn't even know who he is any more. His memories feel fake. The only words that ring true in his mind are those of Marluxia.

_You're the replica now. Do you understand?  
_

But it still takes months for him to come to terms with the anomaly between what half of his memories dictate, and the rest.

Vexen thinks he's the replica Four-Eleven. _He_ thinks he's the replica Four-Eleven. But he _isn't_.

---

When the blindfold is peeled away everything becomes clear.

Marluxia opens his eyes and blinks in the light.

"Speak, if you must," Vexen says.

Marluxia has to set things straight. He feels obliged to confirm his true existence.

"He took over," He murmurs.


End file.
